May 18, 2007– Sivan 2,
5767
Happy
Shavuot
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman,
Send your friends and relatives the gift of Jewish awareness -- a
Shabbat-O-Gram each week, by signing them up at www.tbe.org. To be removed
from this mailing list, sent e-mail request to office@tbe.org. If you have signed up and are not
receiving our e-mails, check your spam filter to make sure that TBE is not
being “spammed out.”
Contents
of the Shabbat O Gram:
(Click
to scroll down)
Just
the Facts (service schedule)
The (Occasionally) Ranting Rabbi
Mitzvah/Tzedakkah Opportunities
The
Beth El Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary
Required Reading and Action Items (links
to key articles on Israel and Jewish life)
Announcements (goings on in and around
TBE)
YouTube
Thus far, there have been 768 views of my initial foray into
YouTube immortality:
Gates of
Jerusalem, Gateways to Judaism
Thanks to those who have helped me with their comments. I’m planning to work on sprucing
up the “studio” and getting my mouth to move with the words, among
other things. Still it was nice to
see that someone even “favorited” me!
(OK, so it was my son…). More
YouTube features will be forthcoming, and I’d love to hear your ideas as
to how we can use this tool. For
instance, someone suggested that families might want their bar mitzvah kids to
put their speeches on our YouTube site, so the relatives living Far Far Away (the Shrek family, for instance) can see
them. Sounds good
to me!
Our Shavuot Schedule
On Shavuot eve., Tuesday at 8:oo PM here at TBE (note the change of
location), we’ll prepare to receive the Torah yet again, with meditative
and spirtual music and interpretive prayer,
followed by dessert. Then
we’ll delve deeply into the timely topic of the grandeur that was Shavuot
in ancient
On Wednesday
morning, the first day of Shavuot (at 9:30, as usual), we’ll be delighted to involve our
students, in particular our day school students, in this service. We’ll
also hear the traditional Akdamut prayer (see Shavuot
links below for more info) We’ll have children’s services as well
with Nurit (at 10:30) and at the end we’ll all come together to unroll a
Torah so that each person, young and old, can personally receive the
Torah.
Then….we’ll
have a scrumptious Shavuot Lunch featuring those well-known traditional dairy
dishes: BLINTZES and
PIZZA. I think it was Rabbi Akiva who recommended
pizza… (please let me know if
you would be interested in co-sponsoring the lunch).
On Thursday
morning again at 9:30 (and again with Nurit at 10:30), our service will feature
selections from the book of Ruth and then, after the Torah reading, Yizkor
prayers, which will take place sometimes between 10:45 and 11 (I mention that
knowing that many will be breaking away from other activities to join us).
Quote for the Week
“"The Summer Day"
by Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Candle lighting: 7:42 pm on Friday, 18 MAY
2007. For Havdalah times, other Jewish
calendar information, and to download a Jewish calendar to your PDA, click on http://www.hebcal.com/. To see the festivals of other faiths as
well, go to http://www.interfaithcalendar.org/. The United Synagogue has updated its candlelighting information. To learn more, click here.
Friday Evening:
Third Grade Shabbat
Dinner – 6:30 PM
Tot Shabbat: 6:45 –
in the chapel
Kabbalat Shabbat
(including Third Grade Siddur Ceremony):
7:30 PM – in the SANCTUARY
Shabbat Morning:
Service begins at 9:30 AM
Mazal Tov to jeremy simon, WHO
BECOMES bAr MITZVAH THIS SHABBAT MORNING, and to Natalie Avni and gene landres,
whose ufrufn will take place this shabbat as well
Children’s
Services: 10:30 AM
Our Torah Portion
for Shabbat Morning
1: 3:14-20
2: 3:21-26
3: 3:27-39
4: 3:40-43
5: 3:44-51
6: 4:1-10
7: 4:11-20
maf: 4:17-20
Haftarah: Hosea
2:1 - 2:22
If you liked Storahtelling, Storahtelling’s new weekly blog about the Torah portion is at http://storahtelling.blogspot.com/. Also check out Torahquest at http://www.torahquest.org/commentary_list.php ORT Navigating the Bible; Rashi in English; BibleGateway: Useful for comparing different translations: Note- this is a Christian site.What’s
Bothering Rashi (Bonchek) Each week, one example from the parashah is deconstructed. See a weekly commentary from the UJC Rabbinic Cabinet, at www.ujc.org/mekorchaim. Read the Masorti commentary at http://www.masorti.org/mason/torah/index.asp. University of Judaism, JTS commentary is at: http://www.jtsa.edu/community/parashah/. USCJ TorahTHE ENTIRE
HEBREW BIBLE (AS WELL AS OTHER JEWISH SOURCES) CAN BE FOUND
WITH SIDE-BY-SIDE TRANSLATION AT http://www.mechon-mamre.org/
100
Blessings: Download information about the grace
after meals (see Birkat
Ha-mazon explained in Wikipedia and in the Jewish
Virtual Library)
The actual prayer can be downloaded at Birkat
Hamazon [pdf]
Morning Minyan
7:30 Weekdays, 9:30 Sundays
A
GUARANTEED MINYAN HAS BEEN REQUESTED FOR FRIDAY MAY
19. PLEASE SIGN UP AT OUR WEBSITE WWW.TBE.ORG – THE ROSNER MINYAN MAKER!
TO ENSURE A “GUARANTEED MINYAN” FOR
THE DAY OF YOUR YAHRZEIT – GO TO THE ROSNER MINYAN MAKER AT WWW.TBE.ORG AND ALSO
CONTACT ME AT RABBI@TBE.ORG.
The
(occasionally)
Conservative
Movement at a Crossroads
Join
me this Sunday, May 20, at 10 AM in the chapel, for a discussion of the recent
happenings in the Conservative Movement regarding inclusiveness in sexual
orientation. At that time I’ll explain recent law committee rulings and
changes in JTS admissions policies, and what it all means for us at TBE. While these changes have been years in
the making, for many they seem earth-shaking. As we absorb these shifts, lots of questions have come up. I would be delighted to
answer any questions you may have and respond to your concerns, whether at this
event or more privately.
----------------------------------
At an
adult ed class I was teaching last week, we were
discussing roles people play in their work, and one of the participants
happened to have with her a copy of an article I wrote 17 years ago for the now
defunct Stamford Trader, for which I was a columnist (which is not why they are now defunct). Although I wrote it at a
completely different stage of life (0 kids, 1 dog), it is as relevant now as it
was then, and not just for clergy but for everyone.
Burnout
By Joshua Hammerman
Lately,
an unusual number of people have been asking me how I’m feeling. I have Dr. Leslie Freedman to thank for
that. He’s the
Mr.
Freedman backs this up with the revelation that the level of stress rabbis feel
every day is measurably greater than that felt by inhabitants of
According
to Mr. Freedman, the primary factor behind this stress is the inability to
separate the person from the role.
As he states, “A wide range of familial problems ensue when a man
doesn’t keep clearly in mind the differences between being a husband, a
parent, and a rabbi.” The same holds true for clergy of all denominations and sexes,
including Catholic priests, who, while they may have no spouse and children,
have other family and most certainly have the need for a private life.
No
one is immune to role-related stress.
Like all professionals, rabbis must be able to draw the line clearly
separating office from home. One
who preaches the necessity of spending more time with family must also create
such opportunities for himself. Mr.
Freedman’s research shows that the rabbi who doesn’t take vacations
and regular days off, thereby erasing that fine line separating his personally
and congregational families, is heading for professional burnout and personally
misery – and fast.
But
that doesn’t mean that the rabbi at the office and the parent or spouse
at home have to be two different people.
On the contrary, he should be exactly the same person wherever he
is. And that is where I part
company with Mr. Freedman’s conclusions.
The
conventional wisdom states that professional stress leads to career
burnout. I believe, conversely,
that it is burnout which brings about the greatest
stress. The problem is not so much
that a professional shouldn’t bring his role home with him as that he
shouldn’t become that role,
either at home or in the office, and
lose himself in the process.
Don
Marquis, the American humorist, wrote, “There are two sorts of truth in
all of us, that which the world sees, and that which we know. Our deeds, which are known to all men,
too often appear to us to be strange, inexplicable libels on ourselves.”
Burnout
occurs when our deeds become libels on ourselves.
It
occurs when a job becomes routine and tedious, when the vision that brought us
to a particular calling is lost.
For a doctor, burnout happens when a patient becomes “the gall
bladder in room 502”; for a rabbi, when a 13-year-old
human bundle of complexity becomes “the Bar Mitzvah on the 12th.” Burnout occurs when a given workday
becomes exactly like the previous one, or, for a rabbi, when two consecutive
services are exactly alike (and congregants begin nodding off with alarming
regularity).
A
rabbi is to a large degree a professional human being, a seeker of truth, hired
to keep others seeking, to keep them from burning
out. In a dehumanized world, mine
is one of the few jobs left that brings out the human side of people. That can only happen when the human
being who happens to have the title “rabbi” is fully
present.
Burnout
can occur in any profession at any age; it has little to do with dashed
expectations and blunted idealism.
Professionals learn to adjust. It has much more to do with sacrificing
uniqueness for the sake of an assigned role. The day I become the rabbi others expect
me to be, the moment I become a symbol, a title, anything other that who I
really am, that will be the day my career meltdown begins.
It
hasn’t happened yet, and I hope it never will. But, for those who are concerned about
my physical state, not to worry. I
feel fine. A few sunny days off in
the
Mitzvah/Tzedakkah Opportunties
Inreach and Outreach
Beth El Cares
Cathy Satz (968-9191; csscounsel@yahoo.com)Cheryl Wolff (968-6361; cwolff@optonline.net)BETH EL CARES co-chairs
Room Rental Requested
Lillian Wasserman is loved by so many of
us through her many years
of service to the Bi Cultural day school.
Lillian is looking to rent a room locally so that she will not have to
commute from her daughter Rivka’s home in
IS YOUR NEST EMPTY,
BUT YOUR HEART FULL?
Is anyone interested in a social group or network
that is geared toward Singles and Empty nesters?
If so, please e-mail me at mamagoose@optonline.net
Jeremy Simon’s Mitzvah Project
Jeremy Simon’s mitzvah project is collecting toys/games for
children in the pediatric unit at
A message from Bat Mitzvah student Emily katz
The holocaust was to "never happen
again". Yet today a genocide continues unnoticed in Dafur. As we speak over 3.5 million men,women and children are left starving and homeless
everyday. That is the reason I, have started to raise money for the people of
Click on
http://www.savedarfur.org/page/outreach/view/dollarsfordarfur/EmilyK